by Never Trumper and independent Utah Senate candidate Evan McMullin bemoaned the Club for Growth ads, highlighting his repeated claims that Republicans are “racist.”
After the Club for Growth released an ad last week highlighting McMullin’s repeated claims that Republicans are racist and bigoted, McMullin led a press conference calling for the ad to be pulled. The ad was exclusively acquired by Breitbart News ahead of its release.
“This election and my campaign is about standing up for the broken politics and extremism that plagues our country, and the unhealthy influence of special interest groups in our politics,” McMullin said during the news conference. “The last example for us was yesterday. An out-of-state special interest group that supports far-right politicians across America, including Mike Lee, began running an ad that deliberately edited my words to deceive and divide our state in order to save Mike Lee and the failed his campaign”.
“They are spending millions of dollars on this campaign to deceive and divide Utahns in order to protect Mike Lee,” said McMullin, a former CIA officer.
Here’s the ad McMullin called to cancel:
At McMullin’s behest, KSL took down the ad.
But even though McMullin called the ad a misleading edit, McMullin has repeatedly attacked Republicans as bigots.
“There is an element of the Republican base that is racist,” McMullin said during an August 2017 interview.
In a February 2021 interview, McMullin said the Republican party was “rotten to the core”.
In June 2020, McMullin said, “The Republican Party has become so damn anti-American.”
“For too long, conservative leaders have been reluctant to confront the bigots and lunatics in their base. That must change,” McMullin wrote in June 2017. He even suggested that “savvy foreign adversaries” could “tread on” the vulnerable Republican base if conservative leaders do nothing.
For too long, conservative leaders have been reluctant to confront the bigots and crazies in their base. This has to change. pic.twitter.com/ZYUtAdd3sp
— Evan McMullin 🇺🇸 (@EvanMcMullin) June 19, 2017
McMullin wrote in June 2020, “The REP is sick. He invited racist vermin to Lincoln’s party years ago and they have sucked the values and patriotism out of his body. I wasn’t optimistic that it could change, but I hoped and fought anyway. Now, I don’t see how Trump’s ‘white power’ will ever recover.”
The GOP is sick. He invited racist vermin to Lincoln’s party years ago and they have sucked the values and patriotism out of his body. I wasn’t optimistic that it could change, but I hoped and fought anyway. Now, I don’t see how Trump’s “white power” will ever recover.
— Evan McMullin 🇺🇸 (@EvanMcMullin) June 28, 2020
He also wrote that same month, “I was lifted up with instead–racist Republicans. I know there are millions of them still out there, but the party is over with the treacherous cancer of bigotry and must be defeated until it repents and reforms or dies once and for all.’
I was raised by anti-racist Republicans. I know there are millions of them still out there, but the party has been defeated by the treacherous cancer of bigotry and must be defeated until it repents and reforms or dies once and for all.
— Evan McMullin 🇺🇸 (@EvanMcMullin) June 28, 2020
McMullin explained in 2016 that he learned the Republican Party allegedly has racist roots after working as a senior staff member in the House of Representatives. “I spent a lot of time in the Republican Party thinking this was something Democrats and liberals would say, [people] who weren’t interested in really understanding who we were,” McMullin said. “But I have to say in my time in the House of Representatives and in leadership and senior roles there, I’ve come to realize that no, they’re actually right.”
He continued, “And Donald Trump has made it even clearer that there is a serious racism problem in the Republican Party. This is the problem. Not conservative ideals. Racism is not conservatism. And that’s what I’m talking about. This is the problem.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
